Podcasts

also, um, i'm kind of lowkey hosting a BBC podcast (about... BBC podcasts)

Nice one, Tracer!

I'm enjoying "Slow Burn," Slate's Watergate series. I know Watergate sort of moderately well, but there's a lot of stuff in here I've never heard. And they do a pretty good job of noting obvious contemporary parallels without beating you over the head. Mostly it's about how just totally crazy the whole thing was, and how long it took for most people to really pay attention to it as it was playing out.

that sounds kinda good to me

One thing I like is getting away from the Woodward-Bernstein framing — those guys were important, but there were a lot of other important people too, in the media and outside it.

it is v good

also one of the podcastiest podcasts you ever will podcast

I'm starting to get obsessed with RPG podcasts fyi

like what?

On the subject of roleplaying podcasts, I feel like Friends at the Table is a hard sell because of the time investment involved and the deep nerdery of the enterprise, but the Marielda/Winter in Hieron (post-post-apocalyptic fantasy) and COUNTER/Weight (cyberpunk anime SF) seasons are really rewarding. FatT's storytelling isn't as tight or funny as The Adventure Zone (partly because it's more heavily improvised), but it's equally creative and often more thoughtful and ambitious.

http://friendsatthetable.net/category/Marielda

yeah i have been listening to the adventure zone, counterweight and FILM REROLL which is just a ridiculous hoot. wizard of oz a highlight

i know FatT is v well-regarded but yeah i haven't quite got into it

i will check out the marielda thing, thank you!

campaign and one shot also have their moments

I plugged my own Burning Ambulance podcast (link goes to iTunes) when it first launched back in October; there are now eight episodes up, and I've already got the next two recorded. Hour-long interviews with jazz musicians, no ads (wouldn't even know how to get advertisers), and a minimum of pre-interview jabber.

that sounds like the right recipe, thank you grawlix

here's a link that works by the way :) https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/burning-ambulance-podcast/id1296224800?mt=2

some more rpg recs:
https://fuckyeahdnd.tumblr.com/post/169958969417/podcasts

I will second Slow Burn. Listened to almost all of if this weekend. As a Canadian who mostly only knew the broad outlines of Watergate (and mostly from a viewing of 'all the president's men' ~20 years ago) I'm finding this very informative. Also enjoy that they've cut it up into short 20-something minute episodes.

Really liking This Week In Parasitism - http://www.microbe.tv/twip/
Three doctors taking about, what else, parasites! Lots of science talk, but the best part of the show is their case study of the week where listeners are invited to ID the parasite based on stuff like:

"Case Study for TWiP 145
Male 40s, visiting NYC on business. Lives in Thailand, seeks medical attention for diarrhea and abdominal pain. Diarrhea is continuous, even at night. Feels swollen. Stool cultures come back negative. CBC reveals eosinophilia. Clinician orders stool O&P. See something in stool: large elliptical objects, over 100 microns.

Perhaps not for everyone, but a must listen if you're at all fascinated.

If musician interviews are your thing The Trap Set might appeal, it's a drummer's podcast but 99% of the talk is non-technical. Joe, the host, is more interested in finding out what makes his interviewee tick and he can be kinda fearless but still non-aggressive in his questioning.

Even the silly premise of interviewing Roland, Steve Albini's Big Black era drum machine comes across as really interesting.

http://www.thetrapset.net/

Trap Set is great - La Lechera turned me onto it a while back

yeah, i don't have a ton of interest in technical drum stuff, but the trap set is consistently interesting. there's a new spin-off with Laura Veirs hosting, featuring interview with musicians about parenting. great so far ... http://www.midnightlightning.net/

Glad to see people who are not me talking about the Trap Set. :)

I'm low-key trying to start my own podcast where I talk to producers/electronic music people, still have some things to figure out but I'm recording the first one this weekend.

Some of my resolutions are to avoid things I'm tired of in other interview podcasts, such as 1) spending too long in the intro talking about what they talk about with the guest, and 2) spending too long in the beginning of the interview asking about the guest's childhood. Sometimes this yields interesting material but is more often boring, and feels like an inevitable topic that has to be discussed before you can get to the real conversation. I blame Maron for this.

i'm trying to get into podcasts

i just want interviews with scientists

no quirky npr types

trap set sounds fun

ty for trap set rec. just subscribed.

i've been listening to Classics for Kids with my kids on the commute to school. Each episode is only 6 minutes and breaks down different composers or a song or w/e. my kids love it and i love it too cos i dont know jack about classical.

Re: science podcasts, try Spacepod presented by Dr Carrie Nugent, an asteroid hunter/scientist at Caltech. Weekly short interviews with people from NASA etc. about their work in current space research.

oops not weekly, fortnightly

Ologies is good, different scientist/specialist each week

aww thanks folks!!

I enjoyed "Slow Burn" but I sometimes feel that lack of authority when a millennial (he attended college 03-07 so I'm assuming he makes the 1983 cut-off) decides to talk about history from slightly before their time. Like for instance he starts off the new episode saying that when he started this project he had no idea that Spiro Agnew had resigned over a bribery scandal. Really? And you thought you were the guy to do a Watergate podcast?

It was like when I heard Ezra Klein recently express amazement that it was Robert Bork who fired Archibald Cox. Really? And you want to explain politics to me?

yeah i’m with you on that.

I'm glad someone else is listening to Ologies. I loved Alie on Slumber Party with Georgia Hardstark, but they might not be friends anymore? Dunno, but Ologies so great I don't even miss the old days.

Kinda want Joe Wong to interview Whiney for The Trap Set, seeing as they both played in Parts & Labour :)

Whoops, 'labor', my monocle and bowler hat are showing...

xxpost yeah idk what happened btw Alie & Georgia but they dont seem to interact anymore

I've been listening to Decode The News a bit recently - it's the project of Zee, who's the wife & producer of Jamie from The British History Podcast. Decode The News is her project, but he's there as much as she is, and it seems like they haven't really worked out the way they should interact with each-other on air yet - he is used to reading from a script, and this is more like a conversation about issues in the news. However, I reckon it has promise, Zee really seems to have done extensive research on everything she talks about, and isn't coming at things from the usual twitter hot take bubble.

https://www.decodethenewspodcast.com/

Kinda want Joe Wong to interview Whiney for The Trap Set, seeing as they both played in Parts & Labour :)

Ha I would enjoy that, I'll ask him about it.

I just interviewed the host of the Zero Squared/Zero Books Podcast last night, and we got a good two plus hours of Portland leftie pod tape that I now need to figure out how to edit down.

has anyone linked this?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/doree/meet-the-people-who-listen-to-podcasts-at-super-fast-speeds

my question is why???

To absorb information as quickly as possible in the limited time available in a human lifespan, I guess? Yeah, doesn't sound good.

it's just quixotic and the ppl they're profiling it's v questionable listening imo.

Take 34-year-old Jason Strickland, who works for a land surveyor in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He listens to around eight hours of podcasts at work every day, and listened at normal speed until he came upon the Movies by Minutes series of podcasts, which analyzes iconic movies minute by minute. (In other words, every episode is devoted to one minute of a movie.) When he found it, the hosts had already completed the original Star Wars trilogy, which was 378 episodes, plus a few special episodes, so he started downloading 50 episodes at a time and listening at 2x speed. "It took about a month per movie to get caught up," he said, explaining that he would listen to whatever podcasts were on his current listening list in the morning, and then power through the Movies by Minutes episodes in the afternoons. "Once I was current, I would then go find another show to download and get caught up, repeating this for all the shows."

isn't it just more pleasant to listen reasonably to stuff at normal speed (so everyone doesn't sound like chipmunks) and a reasonable amount of it? if you have too many podcasts to listen to maybe you're listening to too many podcasts????

I do it all the time. You'll be amazed how easily you can follow a conversation at double speed. And the players only change the speed, not the pitch.

Any podcasters here have strong opinions on hosting?

I use libsyn, it's OK I guess. Rubbish interface, reasonably cheap, recently pretty reliable in terms of outages.

decode the news is a great idea, i just wish it was a bit... better?

Go for Libsyn over SoundCloud, tho soundcloud does offer the benefit of its own network of users.

Libsyn also auto-ports your show over to YouTube, which you want to do

Yeah, I know what you mean. But I feel like they are just finding their way with it, his other podcast took a long time to get good.

Xp

i keep hearing this but what benefits do you get from having it on YouTube?

xposts

I hate how soundcloud puts up barriers to getting the mp3